NBC Disappointed That Asian Cardinal is 'No Reformer'

As the Vatican hosts its conclave to choose the next Pope, NBC looked into the work of Cardinal Luis Antonio “Chito” Tagle and came to the sad conclusion that he is just as traditional as any other cardinal. As NBC ruefully noted, Tagle is “no reformer.”

NBC starts out on a hopeful note: “On the face of it Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio ‘Chito’ Tagle has a lot going for him as a contender for pope. He’s young: At 55, the second youngest of the cardinals. He sings and preaches on television, and has 120,000 followers on Facebook.”

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He’s hip, he’s young, he’s into technology. And apparently, simply because he’s Asian, NBC wondered if he would toe a liberal line and might be one who would institute “social reform.”

But NBC went on to note that Cardinal Tagle is as staunchly against contraceptives as any other cardinal, a stance that is a chief tenet of the Church.

NBC points out that in a recent debate on a national healthcare law that included government-sponsored contraception for Philippine women, Tagle and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines “declared that ‘contraception is corruption’ and that the moral fiber of the nation was at risk.”

This strict adherence to Church doctrine, NBC claimed, made Tagle less desirable as a Papal candidate.

NBC’s report gravely concludes:

But his is not the easy charm of a social reformer. Far from it. And reformers here in Manila fear that in the knockabout world of Philippine politics, a strong performance by Tagle in Rome could strengthen the hand of conservatives at home fighting what many regard as much-needed reforms.

This is typical of the Media’s coverage of the election of the next Pope. Traditional Church doctrine is looked upon as archaic and even dangerous while calls for “reform” fill reports from coast to coast.

Just over the weekend, for instance, Sally Quinn told CBS’ Bob Schieffer that the Catholic Church is, “on the way to irrelevancy if they don’t start including women and certainly people of other color and ultimately homosexuals.”

This liberal focus on “reform” to the exclusion of actual Church doctrine has been the recurring theme of coverage of the events in Rome.